


Truth in the Periphery

by DrowningByDegrees



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Everyone Needs A Hug, Hallucinations, M/M, Monsters, More angst, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 18:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12514016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningByDegrees/pseuds/DrowningByDegrees
Summary: Bucky and the rest of the Avengers' night is interrupted by a possible intruder. They lock down the Tower and go on the hunt, only to realize far too late that things aren't what they seem. Bucky searches for answers and finds he can trust no one.Especiallynot himself.A psychological horror story for theStucky Scary Bang.





	Truth in the Periphery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Menatiera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/gifts).



> Thank you so very much to [jinlinli](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli) and [obsessivereader](http://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivereader) for all your help with betaing, and thank you to [Menatiera](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/pseuds/Menatiera) for the great prompt! Since the prompt itself is a spoiler for the story, I've added it to the footnotes.

If this was what it meant to be back in Steve’s orbit, Bucky was not about to start complaining. He stretched out on his stomach against the bedding, cheek resting on his arms where they folded across the pillow. Steve sprawled across his back, a welcome weight of warm skin and solid muscle. He could get used to feeling like there was room for him.

The feather light drag of Steve’s fingers deftly sweeping Bucky’s hair aside sent a shiver down his spine. Plush lips pressed soft, open mouthed kisses down the nape of Bucky’s neck. He was too relaxed to care about the low, happy murmur it pulled from him. He sucked in a breath at the slide of Steve’s palm along his flank - long, clever fingers sneaking to curl around his hip. Bucky grinned into the crook of his elbow, deciding he could get used to Steve too.

“I thought we were supposed to go play c-cards,” Bucky murmured, stuttering on the last word as Steve’s teeth scraped against the back of his neck. Steve had shifted, their bodies more flush, and Bucky couldn’t help but be aware of the way Steve’s hips canted, lazily seeking friction. Cards didn’t feel all that important when this was on the table.

“Come on,” Bucky protested anyway, biting his lip as Steve’s fingers slid between the front of his thigh and the mattress. “You know they’re going to come looking for us eventually. _No_ one wants that.”

Steve hummed, and for just a second, Bucky thought it was in agreement. Only agreement didn’t feel like nails digging into his skin, urging him back against Steve. Agreement didn’t sound like the soft rumble of Steve’s voice against the shell of Bucky’s ear. “Relax. They’ll probably just get J.A.R.V.I.S. to come bother us.”

“ _That’s not better_ ,” Bucky argued, though the effect was mostly ruined by the way he was laughing, half muffled in the pillow. It was _entirely_ ruined by the way he whimpered when the fingers around the front of his thigh became an anchor as Steve ground against the curve of his rear.

“Okay.” All at once, Steve let go, rolling off to the side. The air against Bucky’s naked back was strangely cold after the heat of Steve’s chest and stomach had been pressed there for so long, but Steve didn’t even seem to notice. If Bucky had been anyone else, he might even have bought the perfectly innocent smile that creased Steve’s cheeks as he urged. “If we’re gonna go play cards, you might want to put some clothes on.”

“Oh no you don’t.” Steve had started to sit up, but Bucky pounced, sending them both sprawling to one side of the bed in a heap. He’d meant to be sexy, or at least alluring, but mostly he was too busy laughing into the crook of Steve’s neck.

Bucky loved every bit of this. From the way Steve’s head tilted, offering up the delicate expanse of his throat, to the full body tremble when Bucky’s teeth found their way to the juncture of his jaw, Bucky could have lived right here in moments like these. He suckled a bit too hard, fighting a grin as Steve blindly scrabbled at Bucky’s hips.

They were good like this. They were warm and lovely and all wrapped up in affection that had had a century to stew. They were… both groaning unhappily at the blaring of an unfamiliar alarm.

\--------

Rumpled but dressed for the worst, Bucky and Steve took the elevator up to where their friends had been playing cards. Steve already had his shield lifted into place, protecting them from anything they might encounter. The elevator came to a halt at the lounge, and as close as Steve was standing, Bucky could feel the way he tensed as the doors began to open.

Tony was pacing, going on about something to Natasha, Sam, and Wanda. Bucky only caught the tail end of what sounded like utter nonsense about the control room exploding. It couldn’t possibly be true. Aside from the annoying alarm going off in the background, everything seemed _fine_. Besides, Bucky had no doubt that if there was something broken, Tony would be down there himself trying to fix it. His ego allowed for nothing less.

Bucky opened his mouth to say as much, but Tony was never short on words, and now was no exception. “Then, suddenly everything was fine again. Like it never happened.”

“So… the control room didn’t blow up?” Sam clarified. He didn’t look entirely impressed by Tony’s explanation. “Then why is the alarm going off?”

“Oh, that? I just figured on the off hand that Wanda wasn’t using a weapon to play David Copperfield, then the alarm would probably get Cap and his boyfriend to put some clothes on,” Tony replied, mostly shrugging off the question.

“You think _I_ did this?” Wanda asked. Her expression was tight and tense, but her voice was flat and unsurprised. Bucky guessed she’d probably considered the possibility and just hoped Tony wouldn’t go there. “I would never.”

“I don’t know anyone else who bends reality for fun,” Tony shot back. There was a sharp edge to his tone, some private suspicion lurking between what he thought and what he said. “Do you?”

“Relax, Tony. If she said it wasn’t her, you know it wasn’t,” Steve said. He stood like a rampart between Tony and Wanda, and Bucky might have smiled if not for the sharp edges around the whole situation. Seventy years and Steve was still every bit the man he’d ever been.

“Do I?” Tony replied tartly. If he was at all fazed by Steve, he didn’t show it. “Why? Did you start learning magic tricks?”

Bucky had to concede that he had a point. The scene Tony had described made so little sense in any other context. The only person in the room that could have done that was Wanda, and they hadn’t heard of anyone else with abilities anything like hers. Only, one look at Wanda absolved her of any suspicion Bucky might have had. Worry creased her brow, and it didn’t seem like the kind of worry that she’d been caught playing a prank.

“Come on, man. That’s fifty floors down or something, and she was with us,” Sam pointed out. Tension bunched his shoulders. Every word anyone said in Wanda’s defense suggested an uncertain alternative. “You _really_ think that’s what happened?”

“I think you boys are ignoring the obvious here,” Natasha cut in finally. To her credit, her probable exasperation was confined to a nearly inaudible sigh. “We have no reason to think anyone in this room did anything.”

“Pretty sure most of us got that,” Sam agreed.

“Yes, but that means someone or something else caused Tony’s hallucination. While we’re here bickering about who did what, it could be causing more trouble or getting away.”

“If _only_ someone could fix that.” Tony pressed a series of buttons on his watch, and all around them, there were sounds of something sliding into place around the edges of the Tower.

“Did you just lock us in?” Bucky asked. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable response to someone having broken in, but Bucky couldn’t quite shake the sense of dread that crept along his veins.

“No. I locked our mystery troublemaker in,” Tony replied, as if the difference were somehow more than semantics. He smiled faintly, rubbing his hands together. Bucky almost missed the way his gaze lingered just a little too long on Wanda, still subtly suspicious. “Guess we better get to work on finding them.”

Steve was quick to agree, hashing out some kind of game plan with Tony. It was the sort of thing that Bucky normally would have paid more attention to, but in the moment, he was more concerned about Wanda. Bucky drifted towards her, inclining his head. “You okay?”

“I didn’t do this,” Wanda said, so quietly the words were nearly lost in the space between them.

Bucky nodded, laying a hand on her shoulder. He hated that she felt the need to tell him so. They were family after a fashion, weren’t they? As far as Bucky was concerned, honesty - at least about the important things - was a given. “I believe you.”

“He doesn’t.” Wanda nodded once in Tony’s direction. Her mouth set in a hard line. “I can’t even blame him. I’m the only known quantity that could do something like that.”

“So, it was something we haven’t encountered before.” Bucky shrugged. “I don’t know how that’s a difficult concept in our line of work.”

“Whatever the reason, I’m not sure my word is proof enough.” Wanda stood a little bit straighter, her eyes on Steve and Tony as they broke away to head for the elevators. “I’ll just have to prove it to him.”

“We’ll prove it to him.” Bucky flashed Wanda a smile as they turned to follow, though his expression was perhaps incongruous with the reality they faced. With the building in lockdown, whatever had gotten in wasn’t going anywhere, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t causing trouble.

They took the building in twos. Between them and the skeleton security crew that worked in the Tower this time of night, they’d have the intruder found in no time. Bucky was already taking a mental inventory of the weaponry on his person as he piled into the elevator going down with Steve, Sam, and Wanda.

“Stay on comms!” Steve called out through the closing doors to Tony and Natasha.

“Okay, Mom.” Tony’s voice was crisp in their ears. He’d recovered his sense of humor it seemed. That was promising.

They had this. Honestly, there was no reason to be any more concerned about their current situation than a mission. Even less, in fact. Any one of them was potentially lethal, and they’d all survived far worse than a single intruder. All the same, Bucky couldn’t quite shake the terrible feeling that twisted in his gut. It was ridiculous, even in his head, so he swallowed his worries and watched the floor number tick downward.

Midway down the building, the elevator pulled to a stop, opening on a floor that appeared every bit as empty as the sleeping quarters had been when Steve and Bucky had left them. There was nothing sinister about the soft lighting down the hallway, or the closed doors that lined each side of it. Bucky had to admit, there was no logical reason to be so certain, down to his bones, that something awful lurked in every dark corner.

Wondering if the rest of them felt it too, Bucky slipped out of the elevator, his palm already resting on his holstered handgun. Steve was right behind Bucky, calling quietly back to Sam and Wanda, “Be careful.”

“ _You_ be careful. We’ll meet you in the middle.” Bucky didn’t need to look to hear the smile in Sam’s voice. Maybe it was just him, then.

The elevator closed, leaving Steve and Bucky alone. They were as in tune now as they’d ever been, and with barely a glance between them, Bucky knew the plan. There was a stairwell situated at each far corner of the building, and Bucky headed for one, certain Steve would clear the half of the floor leading to the other.

It was just a hallway, as normal as it had been when he left it. The occasional door broke up the eggshell wallpaper and warmly lit wall sconces. Bucky wondered sometimes if it looked intentionally like it belonged in a hotel, or if that was just a side effect of unfortunate carpet choices. At least the ample lighting didn’t leave much opportunity for anyone to go skulking about.

“The elevator just jammed a couple of floors from the bottom.” Sam’s voice crackled oddly in his ear as Bucky slipped down the hall. _Interrogation rooms_ , his mind instinctively filled in.

“Are you two alright?” Steve sounded so clear, he might as well have been standing next to Bucky. Maybe the interference had just been the elevator.

“Yeah. We got the doors open. We’ll just take the stairs down to the reactor and make our way back.” Sam still came through oddly tinny, like a radio station at the far edges of its range. It was probably nothing. Unease twisted in Bucky’s gut anyway.

Focus. He needed to focus. Tuning out everything but his surroundings, Bucky crept down the hall like a ghost, footsteps falling silently against the carpet. He couldn’t shake his worry, but he could appease it, drawing his handgun as he reached the first room.

The door to the quarters Steve and Bucky shared was ajar, but that wasn’t so strange. In their hurry to respond to the alarm, they’d almost certainly left it that way. Just in case, Bucky took a breath, and pushed the door open, ready to fire at… nothing.

The bed was off to the right, every bit as rumpled as they’d left it. Bucky’s gaze flicked over where someone might choose to hide. The couch was straight ahead of him, and once he moved past it, he could see nothing but empty carpet on the far side of the bed. All that was left was the bathroom.

Bucky was just about to venture into the dark, windowless room when he heard it. A soft groan echoed all around him, like a mournful spirit was trapped in the walls themselves. Before he could begin to consider what it might be, Wanda’s voice came through the comms. “Sam?”

Sam didn’t answer. Wanda called again, her voice even more distorted than Sam’s had been in the elevator.

“Are you two okay?” Bucky heard Steve ask, but Wanda didn’t seem to hear him.

“Bucky? Steve? I can't - I - Tony -” The garbled words of her message cut out entirely after that, and Bucky decided this floor could wait.

“I’m going to go-” he started to whisper over the comms. It was the last thing he said before the whimper in the walls became a wail.

The whole building seemed to tremble. Bucky could hear the glass windows rattling in their frames on the far side of the room, and feel the floor vibrate beneath his feet. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have thought it was an earthquake. The tremors traveled through the walls, up, up, up, forcing Bucky to his knees as debris began to shake loose.

It wasn’t the sort of danger he could punch his way through, but Bucky wasn’t much for staying down. He wrapped the fingers of his metal hand around the bathroom door frame, dragging himself to his feet. Whatever danger he was in, Wanda and Sam might have been trapped in the basement with no way to call for help. He’d crawl to get to them if he had to.

In the end, the choice wasn’t Bucky’s at all. As Bucky staggered along the wall, there was a sharp, deafening crack, like rolling thunder. Whatever it was must have done something to the arc reactor. The lights all went at once, going dark as the floor gave out, and then Bucky was falling.

Bucky crashed right through two floors. He came to a halt at the third, landing flat on his back on a hard surface that collapsed partly beneath him. For a second, it was all he could do to breath. Maybe he’d been too close to the conduits that ran through the center of the Tower. Perhaps the tremors had exploited some unexpected weakness. It could have just been that Bucky and the couch that fell with him were _heavy_.

At least he’d stopped. A fallen computer monitor was digging into the small of his back, and the accompanying keyboard was wedged right into the divot of his spine. There was no _good_ way to get to the basement, but of the options Bucky might have preferred, this definitely wasn’t the one. He stifled a pained moan as he rolled off the desk he’d landed on, only realizing once his feet were on the floor that the shaking had stopped.

“Steve?” Bucky called over the comms. He got no response. Not even static. Calling for the others only netted him more silence. On the top floor of the headquarters’ offices, it appeared that Bucky Barnes was on his own.

The lockdown barriers blocked out the light outside, but Bucky couldn’t help wondering if they’d held up everywhere. It was hardly a useful tactic if it wasn’t complete, especially since they had no idea who - or what - was capable of causing hallucinations. Earthquakes too, Bucky supposed, if his surroundings were any indicator. He hoped Steve was alright, but there was no way to reach him and be sure.

The emergency lights hadn’t come on, so Bucky fished his phone from his pocket, relieved it hadn’t been damaged in the fall. His first thought was to call Wanda or Sam to make sure they weren’t trapped, to tell them he was coming. The call wouldn’t go through, and when Bucky pulled his phone away from his ear, there was inexplicably no signal at all.

If he couldn’t communicate, Bucky could at least use the phone as a light source, turning the flashlight on his surroundings. The couch that had come down with him had landed propped partially against the wall, forcing him to climb over it to get out. Concrete, chunks of ceiling tile, and what looked like it might have been a lamp littered the floor. Having to haul it out of the way to open the door wasn’t so troubling, but the noise it made certainly was. All he could hope for was that whatever they were after wasn’t nearby.

Bucky escaped out of the office and into what looked to be a cubicle farm underneath the wreckage. Part of the floor had fallen through right outside the office, and Bucky gingerly stepped around it, crouching down to use what cubicle walls were still standing for cover. In the darkness, a single emergency light shone like a beacon around a corner at the other end of the floor. It wasn’t enough to see by, but that was where the elevators were. Electricity or not, that was the fastest way down to the basement, so Bucky picked his way through the debris towards it.

He heard footsteps long before anyone was close enough to see in the pittance of light Bucky had at his disposal. Bucky shut off the light from his phone to hide his location, back pressed to a cubicle wall as he listened. There were at least three of them, boots crunching heavily over the wreckage. Bucky grabbed for one of the guns he had holstered at his hip, and cocked back the hammer. Either an entire team had managed to break into Avengers Tower undetected or...

“Put your hands where we can see them.”

Bucky huffed out a relieved sigh, realizing it was just part of the security team. He’d been expecting an entirely different encounter.

To put their minds at ease, Bucky came out from where he was hiding, hoping they could see enough to know he wasn’t the enemy. There wasn’t time for this, not really. There also wasn’t time for these guys to be chasing after him when there was an actual enemy somewhere in the wreckage of the Tower. Bucky mustered all the patience he could. “Relax guys. It’s just me.”

“We know who you are. Drop your weapon and surrender.” Bucky couldn’t see a great deal in the dark, but there was a gap in one of the barriers around the building, and city lights shone in one weak sliver of light through it. He could make out enough to be certain these were some of Tony’s security team.

“Look. I appreciate your efforts, but we’re on the same side here,” Bucky protested. He holstered his handgun, lifting his hands in surrender, and trying not to count the seconds down that Wanda and Sam might still be in trouble.

“We have evidence suggesting otherwise,” one of the security officers countered.

“We all want an answer, but I’m not it. One person getting overly enthusiastic in their duties and having a suspicion isn’t evidence,” Bucky said, wishing he could be surprised by any of this. Really, he didn’t entirely blame them for running into a disaster that didn’t make sense and running with this ‘the Winter Soldier is out to get us’idea. People, he generally found, are eager to think the worst of what they fear. They said the right words when he walked into the building in the light of day. They went through the motions, even, offering Bucky all the welcome any of the other Avengers would have gotten. He would have been an idiot though, not to be sure some of them were afraid of him. They all knew what he was capable of.

“It’s over.” In the faint light from outside, the security officer leveled his gun at Bucky. “We have the case files.”

Case files? That didn’t even begin to make sense. “What case files? _Listen_. Everyone who matters to me is in this building. I’d have absolutely no reason to double cross them.”

Bucky expected the stand off. He didn’t expect them to fire. The bullet chimed off his metal arm, and Bucky decided he’d had just about enough.

The three guards would have been no match for him at the best of times, but in quarters this close, they didn’t stand a chance. The shot that glanced off Buck’s arm was the only one they got before Bucky barreled forward, closing the distance between them. It was a conscious effort not to do any lasting harm, to incapacitate without maiming. Their fears were unfortunate, but Bucky didn’t have it in him to begrudge them for it.

“Sorry,” Bucky muttered as he wrapped his hand around the last guard’s throat, squeezing his windpipe. The guard struggled uselessly, and then abruptly stilled. Bucky lowered the man to the floor as gently as he could. The other two had nothing but their uniforms and side arms, but this one had a pack, and when Bucky opened it, he found it jammed full of manila folders bulging with papers. With no time to look, Bucky grabbed the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and ran for the elevators. He could only hope he was in time.

The elevators were as dead as everything else in the building. Stepping in front of the one they’d taken down, Bucky jammed his metal fingers in the crack where the doors met, throwing his weight behind pushing them apart. There was a grinding protest from the metal and gears, but eventually they gave, the doors slowly sliding apart.

Bucky wasted only enough time to shine his cell phone light down the elevator shaft and figure out what he might be able to hold onto. Mostly, the walls were smooth concrete, or they had been. Sections had crumbled after the quake. The metal framework along one side of the shaft was intact as far down as Bucky could see, which admittedly wasn’t that far. It was going to have to be enough.

Pocketing his phone, Bucky climbed into the shaft, grasping at the makeshift ladder. As briskly as he dared, he started down, hoping he wasn’t too late. He descended one floor and then another, the security light dimming more and more the further he went.

It wasn’t long before Bucky was in total darkness, the light above no more than a pinprick in a sea of shadows. He could only feel his way, muscle memory taking him from one rung of the framework to the next. Something creaked threateningly, but Bucky ignored it. There was no turning back now.

The further down Bucky went, the more the framework whined at his movements. It was a song for the sense of dread that bubbled somewhere underneath his calm veneer. He couldn’t even say what it was, precisely, that had him so on edge. Bucky took a breath and pressed on. He’d survive a fall from this height, but after the floor collapse, he certainly didn’t relish the idea.

Bucky had no idea how far he’d gone when he heard the first pop of a rivet slipping from the concrete it was anchored to. The framework creaked, but moved no further. Cursing under his breath, he kept on going, hoping that would be the last of it.

It wasn’t of course. Another rivet popped, and then another, and another. The framework tipped to the side so suddenly that Bucky nearly lost his grip. Grasping blindly for the wall, Bucky tried to balance himself, but the whole frame was coming away from the concrete. If he didn’t let go, the metal he was hanging onto was going to crush him.

Out of options, Bucky let go, bracing himself for the fall. He clenched his jaw, landing in a crouch far less painfully than expected. Apparently, he hadn’t been so far from the top of the elevator after all. Grasping in the dark, he found the hatch and lifted it open, to drop into the elevator carriage itself.

Bad as the fallout had been up above, the basement was worse. Bucky shone his light into the pitch black hallway and wondered, not for the first time, how the Tower was even standing. The hallway was entirely blocked off by rubble in one direction, and the other was a clutter of shattered fluorescent lights and the remnants of the floor above. An entire bathroom looked to have collapsed, leaving the remnants of two porcelain sinks wedged in the rubble, broken pipes burst and spraying water down into the basement.

At least he wasn’t blind down here. Security lights dotted one side of the hallway, their weak, yellow light casting strange shadows on the wreckage. Bucky walked the only way he could. The crunch of debris was muffled by the muddy sound of his boots grinding bits of concrete into the water puddling on the floor.

Bucky peeked into every room he passed. There were chairs and cuffs and metal tables underneath the wreckage, rooms that sent uncomfortable shudders down his spine. Each one was as empty as the one before, no sign that Wanda had ever been inside.

“Wanda?” Bucky called, prioritizing concern over caution. Enemies be damned, he needed to find his friends. He shouted her name again, but no answer came.

Bucky’s hackles rose when he heard the sound of something above the white noise of running water. It was a skittering, scratching sort of noise, like a very large rat was scampering through the next room. When he strained to hear, it seemed to be followed by a mournful sort of whimper. There was an observation window, but everything was so dim, all Bucky could see through it was the muted glow of an emergency light in the far corner.

The skittering grew louder and then abruptly stopped, leaving Bucky to wonder if he’d spooked the thing. He did his best to step around the debris, though his shoes still squelched against the soggy carpet. The door was partially open, and Bucky crept up to it, peeking into the darkness.

For just a second, Bucky thought perhaps it was a rat after all, quiet only because it had found something to chew through. The meager light framed the silhouette of something large huddled in the middle of the room, perched in the middle of the wreckage. It wasn’t a rat. It wasn’t anything Bucky had ever seen.

The creature was easily the size of a large housecat, resembling some manner of lizard. From where he stood, Bucky could just make out a coating of sleek, black scales, and a ridged spine that left the creature looking as if its back and tail were laced with razors. He tried to get a look at the thing’s head, but a strange, glowing mist drifted around it, as if it the thing were exhaling fumes from some sort of radioactive cigarette. Bucky’s expression scrunched in confusion. He’d seen a lot of weird things between Hydra and the Avengers, but nothing quite like this.

Whatever it was, the creature wasn’t welcome. Quietly as he could, Bucky lifted his handgun and took aim at the monster. He breathed out and curled his finger around the trigger when something moved amidst all the wreckage. It wasn’t debris the creature was perched on at all.

Instinctively, Bucky pulled the trigger. The bullet hit. He watched it barrel right through the beast’s shoulder and out the other side. There was no blood though, no wound at all, and the sound the creature made was chilling and rhythmic, a screeching sort of laughter that shuddered right down his spine. It scampered away, but Bucky couldn’t chase after it now.

Letting the creature go, Bucky raced to where Wanda was partially buried under wreckage from the quake. He shoved aside the heaviest pieces, breathing a sigh of relief at the soft, pained sound she made. At least that meant she was alive. “Hey. Are you still with me?”

“‘m not,” Wanda slurred as Bucky cleared away the last of of what pinned her. Wanda’s eyes fluttered briefly before sliding shut again as Bucky tried to work out how to most safely move her.

“Kinda sounds like you are,” Bucky countered, smiling though she couldn’t see it. He swept away the dust and matted hair from her face. “Just hang on. We’ll get you out of here. Do you know what happened to Sam?”

“Not…” Wanda breathed out. It was a desperate thing, a sob with all the force it should have had stripped away. “Not a weapon.”

“What? No. No one…” Bucky’s response was interrupted by what sounded like a battering ram driving through a wall. Refusing to leave Wanda, Bucky crouched down and faced the doorway, steeling himself for a fight. There were shadows in the doorway, drawing out as whoever was out there drew closer. They moved and shifted and Bucky tensed up to attack when two heads came into view.

“Bucky,” said Steve.

“ _Wanda_ ,” Sam echoed, hurrying to where Bucky was sitting.

“What happened?” Bucky asked, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“We were clearing the floor. The next thing I knew, the Tower was trying to come down around our ears,” Sam explained. There was something about the way he said it, but in the dark, Bucky couldn’t quite make out his expression. “I was stuck until Steve got down here.”

“Wanda needs medical attention,” Steve cut in, looking at Sam. Bucky thought he was, anyway. It was hard to tell in the low light. “Do you think you can get her back upstairs while we sweep the place?”

“I got this,” Sam agreed, and Bucky wondered if he was imagining the strain in his friend’s voice.

Steve and Bucky stayed until Wanda was safely cradled in Sam’s arms. There were no good options from there, not when something was on the loose. On Sam’s insistence, they let him head back up the way Steve had come, and Steve followed Bucky.

“We don’t even know what we’re after,” Steve murmured as they walked through the remnants of the basement. Glass and concrete caught in the treads of their shoes, but at least the water didn’t come this far. For a second, Bucky considered telling Steve about the creature he’d seen, but it seemed like such an impossible thing now. Nothing like that existed in any reality Bucky was aware of, and whatever he’d thought was there, he’d heard the bullet hit debris. The further away they got from that room, the less sure Bucky was of what he’d seen, but that awful, laughing sound still curdled his blood.

“We’ve faced worse odds,” Bucky said instead, nudging companionably against Steve’s shoulder. Whatever it was, they weren’t in it alone.

There wasn’t time to stay together, and the next floor up, Bucky and Steve parted ways. They crossed paths as they worked their way up through the lobby and reception area, the huge picture windows entirely sealed away. For four floors, there was nothing but ruin and silence in the sallow emergency lights.

 

 

It wasn’t until Bucky reached the first floor of offices that Bucky heard any sign of life. Someone was rifling through what sounded to be a filing cabinet in the first room. Quietly, Bucky crept to the door and peeked in, seeing no one. Surely he hadn’t been hearing things.

He turned just in time to be leapt on from a collapsed bit of the ceiling. He grabbed at the person perched on his shoulders, their thighs pressing harshly against the sides of his head as fists slammed down on the top of his skull. It was a move he knew well, but he hadn’t been subject to it in ages.

“Nat! The hell are you doing?” Bucky protested, managing to get a good enough grip to throw her off of him. She rolled as she landed, falling into a crouch a short distance away.

“How dare you?” Natasha darted back towards him so fast Bucky only barely caught the tail end of her accusation. “Did you think I wasn’t going to find out you were setting me up?”

“Setting you… what?” Bucky held his metal forearm up to block a blow. “Nat. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s too late to lie about it now. I know better.”

Bucky had never seen her like this. Natasha was cool under pressure, and even in precarious situations, she was _reasonable_. This wasn’t cool and collected or he might well be dead, Bucky realized. This was an angry panic with Natasha’s face, and it didn’t make any sense. He had expected the security team’s distrust, but not Natasha. Never Natasha.

Whatever sense Bucky knew Natasha had and prayed she’d use, it didn’t help him now. She was fast and dangerous, forcing Bucky to put his all into a fight he didn’t want to be having. They fought back and forth across the room, moving too fast for reason or argument.

In the corner of Bucky’s eye, he caught a glimpse of something. Dark scales glittered in the dim lighting, the creature’s mouth open to reveal rows of sharply pointed teeth. It was awful, grotesque, with by eyes that promised to haunt him for the rest of his days. They were a bruised sort of green, sickly and glowing.

Bucky was drawn from his horrified fascination by a boot to the stomach, and he stumbled back with a grunt. When he glanced up again, the beast was gone, and Natasha was lunging for him. He reached out, metal arm hooking around Nat’s middle, and threw her to the ground.

He hadn’t meant to knock her out, when it came down to it. Bucky had to admit though, that at least like this she wasn’t attacking him. He just hoped he could make heads or tails of it before she woke up.

It was bad enough to have the security team thinking he was evil, but he couldn’t stomach Natasha thinking so too. There was some misunderstanding, he was sure. If he could just figure out what. Once he was sure Natasha was out cold, Bucky stooped to search her for the supposed evidence that he’d set her up.

“Bucky?” Steve called from the far end of the hallway, just as Bucky’s fingers reached an envelope tucked into her inside jacket pocket. That had to be it.

“It’s _not_ what it looks like,” Bucky started, pulling the envelope from her pocket.

“I don’t know, Buck,” Steve replied somberly. “It looks about like you knocked Natasha out.”

“Okay, it’s exactly what it looks like, but I can explain. She said she had evidence that I was setting her up for something. It must have been this.” Bucky held up the envelope to Steve. It could only be seen in fits and starts as the emergency light flickered.

“A coupon mailer?” Steve asked. Sure enough, the white business envelope was chock full of ads for carpet cleaning and puppy themed checks (for the approximately two people in New York City who still wrote checks). That made no sense at all. Turning it over gave Bucky nothing to go on, and opening the mailer only revealed that it was indeed full of ads and nothing more. “It must be a code of some kind.”

“Buck…” Steve was frowning in a way Bucky wasn’t sure he liked. “I think it might just be a mailer.”

“You don’t understand, Steve. _Something_ is going on. I ran into a couple of guys from Tony’s security team and they had a backpack full of cases they said proved I was working against the Avengers.” Bucky didn’t wait for a reply. He slipped the backpack off his shoulder, fishing out the most full folder from the batch. Opening it up, he started to hold it out to Steve. “See?”

“Are you sure that’s what they said?” Steve asked, so damnably gently, it made Bucky want to scream. Most of the time, he admired Steve’s immense capacity for calm, but in that moment, it just left Bucky feeling like he was going mad.

“Yeah, you know… being accused of being secretly the enemy sounds _just_ like being invited out for a drink. I should probably double check,” Bucky muttered as Steve took a few of the folders.

It was a strange thing, watching the way Steve’s expression shifted as he flipped through the pages. There was a confused, unhappy pinch of Steve’s forehead that made Bucky squirm. What if there really was something awful in there? He didn’t think he’d done anything that could have been so wildly misconstrued, but that didn’t stop Bucky from feeling a bit ill as he waited for Steve to say something.

In the end, he didn’t have to wait long. Lips pursed with concern, Steve flipped through the second and third file in his hands. “...Bucky.”

“Whatever it is, there has to be some kind of explanation. You _know_ me. I-” Bucky started, but Steve was shaking his head.

“Buck. They’re _empty_.” Steve tilted his hands so Bucky could see a pile of blank printer paper in the folder. There wasn’t so much as a single letter printed on any of them.

Bucky searched his own files, just in case, but it was all just blank. “What the hell is going _on_?”

“There’s an explanation. There’s always an explanation.” Steve sounded so sure, Bucky sort of wanted to strangle him.

“None of the pieces fit. I thought the creature I saw might have something to do with Wanda or the earthquake… whatever,” Bucky rattled off, gesturing vaguely.

“Creature?” Steve’s tone was inscrutably even.

Bucky wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, so he pressed on. “Look, I know how it sounds, but I _saw_ it. It was crouched over Wanda, doing something. I thought maybe it was my imagination or a trick of the light or something, but it was up here with Natasha too.”

“What sort of creature?” The question was measured, considering, and Bucky couldn’t help thinking Steve couldn’t possibly believe him.

“Not like anything I’ve ever seen. It was some kind of” - all Bucky could think about was its haunting yellow eyes and the _sound_ it made. His jaw clenched briefly - “lizard looking thing.”

Steve’s eyes squinted almost imperceptibly, and under any other circumstances, it would have been endearing. It was one of those habits that carried over from as far back as he could remember, a look Steve gave when he wasn’t sure if Bucky was fooling with him. Steve’s only response was a soft “Huh.”

Steve didn’t press. Bucky meant to explain anyway, but he froze as Natasha started to stir. Bucky still wasn’t sure what to do with any of this, but now wasn’t the time to stick around and figure it out. The last thing he wanted was another fight with someone he cared about. Leaving the bag and envelope with Steve, Bucky stepped away. “I’m going to go on ahead. See you upstairs, alright?”

Steve waved Bucky off, probably not wanting to risk alerting Natasha to the fact that he was still there. Bucky slipped away, around a corner and down the hall. He was greeted with quiet. In the absence of enemies, it was impossible not to try to parse out what any of the last few hours _meant_.

Bucky was in the stairwell, heading up another floor, when the cold settled in his chest. None of it made sense, he realized, not even in his own head. His explanations must have sounded even more preposterous from the outside, leaving him wondering if Steve had believed him because there was some reason to think he was telling the truth… or because he was Bucky.

It was probably just paranoia getting the best of him. The night had been an increasingly strange one, and given Bucky’s history, maybe there were only so many accusations he could stomach before he started questioning his own behavior. There was no truth to it. He _knew_ that. It was just that knowing didn’t quite dislodge that niggling sensation at the back of his mind that something was off. The picture was all there, but the details were just a fraction out of focus.

Maybe he’d feel better once everyone was in the same room again. Bucky slipped out of the stairwell onto the next floor, and stifled the urge to groan. He’d never really noticed just how many offices there were in the Tower until he had to search them all. The open areas were even worse, the plastic partitions between desks offering up so many places to hide.

Bucky grimaced at the broken glass and bits of concrete that crunched under his shoes. It was a miracle the whole building hadn’t come down. He slipped from cubicle to cubicle as silently as one could under the circumstances, a deadly shadow clearing the way for Steve and Natasha. Whatever was plaguing them, he’d had just about enough of it.

“All clear,” someone murmured, around the corner from the edge of the cubicles. They didn’t seem to know he was there yet. It was probably just more of the security team, but Bucky had spent a completely unnecessary part of the night fighting against his allies. He had no desire to continue the trend.

Sucking in a silent breath, Bucky peeked around the corner, and felt his stomach drop abruptly. Four men stood in the hallway, their guns at the ready. Their tactical gear was distinctly Hydra.

Of _course_. Why hadn’t he put that together when it made so much sense? All these strange, nonsensical mind games, ridiculous parodies of betrayal. Even the creature he’d seen lurking could easily be one of their creations. Maybe this had all been a ploy to isolate him, to retrieve their weapon once and for all.

Well, that was just tough. Whatever damage they’d done to the relationships he had built with people in this building, he wasn’t going. They were the lowest, most devious of enemies, and Bucky could have kicked himself for not suspecting their involvement from the get go.

There was no sneaking past where they were standing, but Bucky didn’t intend to. He didn’t care how they’d gotten inside or what they were doing. All that mattered was taking them out before they could hurt anyone else. The humanity that informed Bucky’s choices most of the time was shelved away. Hydra merited none of it.

The first one never knew what hit him. Bucky’s aim was perfect, the bullet hitting right between his eyes. The Hydra agent was down before the others could even raise the alarm. Bucky shifted his aim to a second agent, who just barely dodged out of the way as he fired.

“Backup. We need -” Bucky didn’t let the second agent finish. He grabbed the agent’s head and twisted until it snapped. Another of Hydra’s lackeys attacked him from behind. He reached back to grab them, flinging the agent against the wall. His fist followed, metal plates shifting as his knuckles connected with the man’s chest. Even through the tactical gear, Bucky heard bones give with a sickening crunch. He let the agent slide to the tile, choking on his own blood.

The final agent had the good sense to run, not that it saved him from the inevitable. Bucky moved silently, trading his gun for a knife, in case the backup they’d tried to call was coming. He closed the distance between himself and the fleeing Hydra agent in a few strides.

All that tactical gear protected the agent’s chest and soft, vulnerable belly, but that wouldn’t save him now. Reaching out, Bucky buried his metal fingers in the man’s hair and yanked, dragging the agent backward. The kevlar did nothing to stop Bucky from slicing through the man’s throat, dulling the beginnings of a scream to a wet, miserable gurgle. Blood sprayed warmly against his hand, spattering across the wall and floor as Bucky let the body drop.

“Bucky!”

Bucky’s breath caught in his throat. That voice was poison, awful and creeping. There was something, _something_ about it that left him feeling like he’d swallowed one of his knives. Bucky turned his head in the dim, stuttering light.

“No…” Bucky whispered. It was all just the way he remembered, from the immaculately polished shoes and pressed slacks, to the smartly tailored vest and blazer. Even from down the hall, Bucky could make out the carefully combed hair and every familiar wrinkle that identified him as Alexander Pierce. There were so few things Bucky would have owned up to fearing, but his heart threatened to hammer through his chest. “You’re _dead_.”

“Bucky. What are you doing?” There was such… compassion in that question. Bucky had heard that tone so many times, just before his head was scrambled again.

“That name isn’t yours,” Bucky snarled. He almost reached for his gun, but if Pierce had escaped death once, Bucky wouldn’t let him do it again. He’d strangle the life from that monster with his own bare hands. Baring his teeth, Bucky stalked closer. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“Bucky. What are you talking about?” Pierce held his hands up in surrender, as if that was going to stop the inevitable. “It’s me. It’s _Steve_.”

He was going to be sick. How many times had those words tripped off that tongue? How many times had he been herded into submission by half a memory? How dare this imposter try to do that to him again?

“I know who you are,” Bucky retorted, wondering vaguely why Pierce wouldn’t retreat. It didn’t matter, not now, and not when Bucky put an end to him in a moment. He shifted his grip on his knife. “You will never fool me again.”

“What are you talking about?” Pierce started, but Bucky lunged, sending them both to the ground. The landed in the rubble. He drove his fist down, but Pierce rolled away, and Bucky’s fist further shattered a block of concrete instead.

It should have been easy. However he’d cheated death, Pierce was just a man. He wasn’t strong or fast (except that he _was_ ). He had no hold on Bucky (except for the horror bubbling up at his existence). Pierce knew all his moves, anticipated and dodged them. Of course he would. Bucky was the weapon Hydra had made, and Pierce had been there for so _much_ of it.

Pierce kept trying to talk, but Bucky threw his weight forward to straddle his opponent, and any leverage Pierce had was lost. His hands found Pierce’s throat and he squeezed with all the brutal force he could muster. Bucky was so intent on trying to choke the very last breath out of Pierce, he didn’t hear someone else come into the room. He didn’t hear them as Pierce scrabbled at his arms and said his name, over and over, gasped out and breathless.

Pierce’s body was failing under him, larynx starting to collapse under his thumbs. Bucky snarled and pressed harder. He might even have finished the job if he’d had another second. Bucky didn’t get another second. Electricity coursed abruptly through him, shaking through his shoulders and down his spine. Bucky wailed, trembling in shock and agony. He stayed upright, but it was just the space Pierce needed.

All at once, Bucky was on his back, staring up at the ceiling, with someone’s hand on his chest. His whole body was oddly spent, muscles twitching from whatever had been used on him. Bucky struggled anyway, fighting through the sensation as well as he could. It mostly amounted to flopping in the debris like a fish in the bottom of a rowboat.

“Bucky. Bucky _stop_!” That wasn’t Pierce. It sounded like someone else. It sounded like Steve. He couldn’t get his head to move, but he grimaced when someone finally came into view. It wasn’t Steve at all. It was Natasha.

“Nat. You -” It was as far as he got before he realized his words were coming out all slurred. A live wire dangled overhead, and he could only assume she’d used it on him. Bucky’s tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth.

He wasn’t sure he could defend himself, but Natasha didn’t move. In the dark, he couldn’t quite make out her expression. She shouldn’t be on her own, his mind insisted. She was with Steve.

“Hey pal.” _Steve_.There were knuckles brushing against his face, and Bucky forced his head to dip a little. Steve had come, and Bucky wanted to smile, even though his mouth was at odds with anything he wanted it to do.

Bucky worked his jaw a few times, focusing on Steve’s face when it came into view. He knew those eyes and that nose. He’d kissed those lips a thousand times. Bucky reached haphazardly, fingers dragging vaguely along Steve’s jaw, and he almost missed the bruises on Steve’s throat. Almost.

Yanking his hand away, Bucky struggled all over again. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t have mistaken Steve for Pierce, because if Pierce was just an illusion…

Dread was all the impetus Bucky needed to shove himself off his back. He sat up, squinting at the Hydra agents he’d left dead on the floor. He couldn’t see all of them, but the nearest one had his head hanging at an unnatural angle, and an insignia on his uniform. The patch said _Stark Industries._

“No,” Bucky breathed out, cradling his face in his mismatched hands. What had he done? What had he _become_? He’d been so _sure_ , absolutely, unfailingly certain. His mind had been hostage for so many decades, but maybe he’d never gotten free after all. If he couldn’t trust it now, there was no telling what else he had imagined.

Steve’s palm settled against Bucky’s shoulder, but there was no comfort in it. Guilt settled under the weight of it, and Bucky shrugged away from the contact. He couldn’t bring himself to look up. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“We’re going to figure it out,” Steve soothed, as if that weren’t the most horrifying thing he could have said.

“Figure it out? I _killed_ people, Steve,” Bucky snapped, finally lifting his head. His lips pulled back in a rictus of sheer misery as the weight of what he’d done threatened to drown him. “They don’t get to figure it out.”

“That wasn’t you.” There was such a sense of finality to it. People had talked to him like that before. _Your work has been a gift to mankind_ something awful in him echoed, and at the periphery, Bucky swore he could hear that awful, screeching laughter. He looked down and even in the sputtering emergency lights, his jacket looked wet. There was blood on his clothes and blood on his hands, all of it screaming ‘guilty’.

“You don’t know that.” Bucky pushed himself to his feet, needing the distance. He’d always hoped, deep down, that Steve would stop him if it came to it. He’d wrapped himself up in the assurance that Steve’s sense of right would trump his love for Bucky if the day ever came where it had to. This didn’t sound like stopping him. It sounded like excusing him.

“We still don’t know where Tony is, and Wanda and Sam may need our help,” Natasha pointed out, saying nothing of the current circumstances. She didn’t seem interested in lobbing accusations or trying to attack him anymore. Steve had probably convinced her there’d been a mistake, but in light of what he’d just done, now Bucky wasn’t so sure of that. He wasn’t sure of any of it. Their friends were a more immediate problem than appeasing his own worry, so Bucky didn’t ask.

“We should stick together,” Steve suggested, and even without looking up, Bucky could feel his laser focus. There was no arguing with that anyway. Bucky couldn’t even trust his own mind anymore, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

The walk back to join the others could have been a gallows march. Bucky trudged up the stairs ahead of Steve and Natasha, deciding he couldn’t be trusted behind them. None of them said a word, the stairwell silent save for the scuffing of their feet against the steps.

It was a long way up, and the flights all ran together after a while. In the near darkness, it was hard to pick out the signs telling them what floor they were on. Bucky wasn’t looking anyway.

He’d have probably shambled along to the top floor if a sound hadn’t drawn his attention. It was jagged and quiet, a muffled sob. Unless his mind was drifting even further from reality, there weren’t many people it could have been.

As Bucky rounded the corner, he caught a glimpse of a tail, sharp and covered in scales. The creature was at the top of the stairwell, and Bucky understood why the sound he’d heard had been so muffled.

Sam sat at the top of the flight of stairs with Wanda’s limp body cradled in his arms. The creature had settled over them both, nose to nose with Sam, who didn’t even seem to see it. Sam’s responses all seemed muted, sluggish and unaware of anything beyond himself. The mist that Bucky had seen earlier swirled between Sam and the creature, as if it were breathing him in.

Instinct won out over self-doubt in the moment. Bucky reached for his gun before Steve or Natasha could stop him. Steve was right there at his back though, shouting. “Bucky, stop!”

It all happened so quickly. Once again, Bucky fired at the creature. Once again, the bullet went right through it, but that wasn’t what Bucky noticed. The bullet just barely grazed Sam’s shoulder. Sam didn’t respond at all at first, but the creature thrashed as if it had been hit instead. The mist vanished and the creature jerked away, scurrying off up the stairs. Bucky might have chased it, but he never got the chance.

He watched, brows knit in confusion as Wanda sat up. If Bucky’s hearing hadn’t been so keen, he might have missed the exchange between them. Sam wrapped his arms around her. “You were dead.”

“You were _gone_.” Wanda scrubbed a hand over her face, and when Sam released her with a wince, she wobbled her feet. “What happened to you?”

“Sorry,” Bucky murmured, shaking his head to clear it.

“You shot me? Seriously?” Sam scowled up at Bucky.

“Not on purpose. There was something on you,” Bucky tried to explain as he held out a hand to help Sam up.

“What? _Wanda_?” Sam asked. He was still glaring, but he took Bucky’s hand anyway.

“You saw it again?” Steve asked, and Bucky wasn’t sure whether to be relieved someone believed him, or horrified that they did.

“Saw what?” Wanda asked.

Bucky swallowed, not sure where to even begin without sounding every bit as mad as he felt. “It’s sort of…”

“We should find Tony before we settle in for storytime,” Natasha interrupted, and Bucky could have hugged her for it. He wasn’t entirely sure she was trying to help him, but whatever the reasons, it bought him a few minutes to figure out how he was supposed to explain.

\-----

Finding Tony quickly transitioned into waking Tony from the stupor he’d put himself in. He looked like a car had landed on him, leaving him battered and mottled with bruises. The bones in one of his calves had shattered and poked right through the skin.

It took a great deal of effort to get an answer out of him as to what had happened. It didn’t matter where he’d gotten buried by the building shaking. That he’d managed to crawl his way to the med bay in this condition was impressive in and of itself. In the dark and the panic, it was hardly surprising that he’d accidentally knocked himself out with painkillers.

“Maybe that’s why it didn’t attack you,” Bucky mused, still trying to make sense of the events of the night. The creature had attacked Wanda and Sam when they were helpless, but they hadn’t been out cold. Maybe it needed a conscious mind.

“What didn’t attack me?” Tony asked. Even in the dark, he squinted at Bucky, as if the security lights were too bright.

“Some kind of monster,” Steve replied vaguely. The defense made Bucky uneasy, though he couldn’t put his finger quite on why.

“Is it story time now?” Sam was watching Bucky. It wasn’t an accusation, not yet, but Bucky couldn’t help staring at the blood stained rip in Sam’s shirt sleeve.

Sam wasn’t the only one looking at Bucky. There might as well have been a spotlight on him. It was now or never though, so Bucky took a breath and started at the beginning.

\-------

“Are you really trying to tell me this was all caused by some hallucinogenic lizard?” Tony asked when Bucky was done.

“Maybe it’s an alien?” Bucky hoped it was an alien. He loathed the idea that something so wicked could have come from Earth.

Tony rubbed absently at his chin. Fatigue laced his features, but he was clearly fascinated now. “Maybe. I guess it could also be -”

“Maybe we could worry about identifying this thing after we figure out how to neutralize it,” Sam cut in, looking expectantly at the group of them.

“You’re being awfully quiet, Cap. What do you think?” Now that the situation was out in the open, Bucky was even more eager to figure out how to end it.

“I think…” Steve trailed off, his expression pensive.

No. Oh no. Bucky didn’t want to ask, because he didn’t want the answer, but the words came out anyway. “You didn’t even see it, did you?”

“Bucky…” Steve grimaced. He’d always been a terrible liar.

“ _Did you?_ ” Bucky demanded, panic welling in his throat like glue. Steve had been so close behind him in the stairwell. Surely, he had to have seen it.

Steve shook his head. “No.”

“You backed me up.” It should have been a positive thing, but it was acid on Bucky’s tongue. “How could you back me up when you didn’t see it?”

“Because I believe you.” Steve didn’t need to say more for Bucky to hear the rest. _I always believe you_.

“You can’t believe me, Steve. _I_ can’t believe me.” It wrenched something in Bucky’s chest to say that out loud. His jaw clenched in something like grief. On his worst days, he’d always trusted that he was safe because he was with Steve. It wasn’t that he needed protecting. It was that he needed to know people would be protected from him, that someone would always stop him. Now, when someone to stop him was all he had to hang on to, Steve _believed_ him.

“Bucky, I don’t have a better explanation for what’s happening in this building, and your story makes sense,” Steve insisted. Did it make sense? Bucky was struggling through the way he doubted his own mind, trying so hard to answer that objectively. “I have no reason not to believe you about this.”

He might have come to the conclusion that Steve was right, if only Steve had stopped talking. Instead, something in him seized up. Bucky shook his head, gritting out, “There are four dead bodies that say you shouldn’t believe me.”

“There are _what_?” Sam asked, mouth open in something like shock.

“It wasn’t him.” Steve jumped to Bucky’s defense effortlessly, as if Bucky’s lapse with reality had been as petty as tripping someone in the hall or shouting insults. “He didn’t know what he was doing.”

Bucky stopped listening after that. Every possible explanation he considered felt worse, and there was no telling which one was right. If the fissure in his grasp on things began with Tony’s security team and ended with a live wire pressed to his spine, he had still murdered four people in cold blood. His mind had slipped entirely, and if it had done so once, it might again. Maybe not now, and maybe not for the same reasons, but that threat took up permanent residence at the back of his mind.

Without some assurance that someone else had seen what he had, Bucky feared the worst. He could have imagined some of the night’s events. Maybe all of them. There was no way to be sure every moment of this wasn’t a product of paranoia and a hit in the head during the quake. Was he even in the lab? Was he alone somewhere, conjuring up friends to give himself something else to fear?

There was only one loose end that offered any hope of redemption for him. Bucky turned to look at Natasha, where she’d hung slightly back. Swallowing the threat of panic, he ignored Steve’s arguing with Tony and Sam to ask her, “Why did you attack me back there.”

Natasha didn’t answer at first. She opened her eyes slightly wider, lips pursing. “You attacked me.”

Had he? Bucky couldn’t imagine that was true. Very little of what he’d thought had turned out to be right this evening, though. Either she’d been imagining things just like Bucky was, or he was farther gone than he realized.

It didn’t matter which version of events was true, Bucky decided. The answer was the same no matter what. Whether his friends were real or imagined, he was compelled to get away. He had to get away.

Bucky was halfway across the room before Steve called after him. “Bucky. Stop! Where are you going?”

“I can’t be here.” Bucky didn’t look back. He didn’t dare. “I’m not safe for anyone.”

Bucky picked up the pace, never checking to see if Steve - or anyone else - had followed. He move forward, out of the room and up the stairs, compelled as if Cerberus were nipping at his heels. He was ink in the water, and he needed to get away.

There were a few more flights of stairs to the penthouse, and Bucky climbed all of them, barring the door behind him. There was no more distance to be had except for this. He just hoped it hadn’t collapsed in, too.

The room was oddly untouched, mostly intact save for some dust and debris. The collapse of other floors seemed so far away in here. The penthouse was opulent in a futuristic sort of way, neutral wood and marbled walls, and hard tiles that scuffed under Bucky’s boots. The seating was all in leather and gold, but Bucky couldn’t bring himself to sit. He was a contaminant.

Nothing felt real, anymore. Not the earthquake. Not the men he’d killed. Not even Bucky Barnes himself. Bucky paced the room, noticing that the walls meant to lock down Avengers Tower hadn’t entirely closed off the tower from the outside. A dull sense of curiosity walked him to the doorway.

Outside, the sky was gray with the first promise that dawn was on its way. Bucky was sure he didn’t deserve the sunrise. His mind was in tatters, and his hands had blood on them. Looking down, his heart raced in horror. His fingers were still dripping.

“No,” he pleaded with no one in particular. That didn’t make any sense. He knew that, but every time he looked, the bleeding was worse. It trickled off his palms, smearing into the lovely tile flooring. The guilt was consuming him or his mind was giving out, and he didn’t know which.

Somehow, Bucky found his way to the far corner of the room. It was darker there. Maybe he wouldn’t see the blood. It didn’t work, so Bucky closed his eyes, but all he saw was someone running. All he heard was the pained gurgle of a slit throat. There was banging on the door, but Bucky didn’t hear.

“I didn’t want to,” Bucky whispered. He didn’t know when he sat down, but his back was against the wall, and his knees were tucked up in front of him. “Please, I didn’t want to.”

Outside, the night sky was fading, the last stars blinking out of sight. Bucky didn’t see it. He didn’t see anything with his face in his hands, and he stayed there even though his palms were wet and slimy against his cheeks.

A sound roused him when nothing else did. The discordant screeching laugh settled down in his bones. Whatever he’d been running from, it was here.

Bucky sat in a puddle of blood he’d spilled. He reeked of it. That hardly seemed to matter in the face of that sound. Looking up, Bucky’s eyes met another set that glowed yellow in the haze of almost morning. Finally, the creature had come for him.

It was a figment of his imagination, a desperate attempt of his subconscious to justify what he’d done. It was a monster dredged up from some corner of hell, and now that it had isolated him, it meant to be his end. Neither was true, or maybe they both were. Either way, the answer was the same.

Bucky had seen way the creature had responded to Sam’s injury when it had latched onto him, and that was the only answer Bucky had left. The place for him was gone - filled in by a madman, a murderer. The only good he could do now, was to protect the people he loved from this.

The creature stalked closer and blood ran down Bucky’s face. He could scarcely breathe for fear of choking. There was nothing to be afraid of, but his heart threatened to hammer its way free.

Bucky reached a hand, sticky with blood, into his pocket. He wrapped slick fingers around the handle of a handgun. He wasn’t safe, but neither was this creature. Bucky hadn’t chosen the way the night started, but he got to write the end.

The sun peeked over the horizon, watched by no one. The creature came close, and Bucky waited. He had to time it just right. Nameless, bottomless fear consumed him.

He recognized the mist, but he hadn’t known what it felt like. It slipped between his lips. It filled his nose. It was going to suffocate him, but Bucky couldn’t move. He was frozen with terror, drowning in blood and guilt. His metal hand rested on the handgun, and he almost forgot he had it.

There was one thing left to do. Through the haze and the horror, Bucky wrested the gun from its holster. Even the strength of his metal arm was almost no match for what was happening. Every inch he moved was a struggle, but move he did. Inch by inch, Bucky lifted the gun, until it was to his temple.

Bucky couldn’t speak. Opening his mouth further only left him choking on the mist that surrounded him, and opening his eyes left him staring into the depths of something awful. He almost forgot what he was doing, cocking the hammer of his pistol back only by chance. The door to the stairs burst open. Someone was yelling, but Bucky couldn’t understand the words.

It was feeding on his terror, Bucky realized absently, though he could do nothing about that. His heart shuddered away in his chest, and that awful screech the creature made was going to be his funeral dirge. He surrendered to it, fingers curling around the trigger.

Bucky was dying, on the creature’s terms, or on his own, but someone was shaking him. Bucky pulled the trigger and it was so, so loud, but the bullet went wide. His one chance to claim some scrap of his autonomy back, and Steve had taken that from him with one touch.

The creature tried to skitter away and the spell it cast on Bucky was broken. He was caked in blood, but the terror receded, and Bucky launched himself forward to catch the beast. His aim was good, and he came crashing down on top of it, hands sliding right through its scaled body.

The sun came up, the first rays stretching out through the door of the penthouse. The light touched Steve and it reached for Bucky, closing in on the creature he couldn’t catch. The effect was instantaneous. Scales became ash, and the creature’s long claws and glowing eyes dissolved into nothing. It disappeared entirely, borne away by the sunlight. It was finally over.

In the aftermath, Bucky sagged to the floor on his back. He held up a hand. It was just skin, but that didn’t ease the worry. He’d been _dangerous_ , and even when that danger had driven Bucky to murder, Steve had believed him. There was something broken in them. Bucky just hadn’t wanted to see.

Even Bucky’s ability to choose had been sacrificed at the altar of Steve’s love for him. He was alive, but what was the cost?

“Bucky,” Steve murmured, sitting near where Bucky had sprawled on the ground. “I _did_ see it.”

“I know,” Bucky breathed out. He didn’t look up. He couldn’t look up. “I think it’s too late.”

**Author's Note:**

> The text of the prompt this was written to is: _"An undefined, evil creature gets into the Avengers Tower through the vents and whispers their darkest fears to them, undermining mental wellbeing and the team starts to fall apart as the creature feeds on their misery. As a leader, Steve choses to be the last man standing come what may, and Bucky is of course strains himself to be by his side even if it kills him. The two of them must deal with their own demons, battle their own fears and the not-so-nice part of their pasts - as well as the others and the creature. (Maybe they get affected later because they happened to be away when the initial infestation happened?)_  
>  For example: Team dynamic blows up in their faces as each Avenger’s worst self takes control. Nat, Clint and Tony go mad on self-hatred, and Stucky need to stop the team before the disaster has a chance to leave the Tower, no matter the price."


End file.
